 |
Giant Queen portrait heads from Winnipeg to Whitby to auction block
 |
Toronto Star
A bare wall, cathedral ceiling and larger-than-life affection for the Royal Family are all you need to give the Queen a new home.
That would be the painted version of Her Royal “Highness” because, at seven metres, she’ll reign above everything else in the room.
Her Majesty’s smiling countenance, painstakingly portrayed on a giant sheet of plywood in 1979, is going on the auction block early next year. After more than 10 years languishing in a Whitby warehouse, it’s time to dust her off and display her again, the owner has decided.
“We’ve had offers to hang her in a few places but everybody wants it for nothing,” says Anya Wilson, custodian of the oil painting that hung for 20 years in the Winnipeg Jets’ former hockey arena.
Owned by a Vancouver singer/songwriter, the portrait should generate special interest in 2012 when Queen Elizabeth celebrates her Diamond Jubilee and 60 years on the throne, Wilson says.
“What a wonderful attribution it would be to use Canada’s own biggest picture of the Queen,” says Wilson, a Toronto promoter for the music industry.
Elizabeth became monarch after her father, King George VI, died on Feb. 6, 1952. The jubilee will be marked by royal tours, including a visit to Canada by Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla.
The head-and-shoulders picture of a beaming queen — her smile alone is almost a metre wide — was painted from a scaffold by the late billboard artist Gilbert Burch. It was taken down from the Winnipeg arena in 1999.
Wilson expects to auction off the “very unique” painting in February. But while she has no idea what it’s worth, paying for it may not be the buyer’s biggest concern.
Just getting it through the door could be a tall order.
448 page views
|
|
|
|